Monday, 23 January 2012

How to "package" what you do

I posted the following on a linked in group and had some fantastic feedback from people in the group, so thought I would blog it this week. Packaging your skills, especially when you are multiskilled and help people in a mutlitude of ways can be very tricky. Here are some tips which may help:

1. Start by thinking about "what people get" from working with you. Really spend time focusing on the benefit that you deliver rather than the "what you do". What problem do you help them solve? Ask your clients what they get from working with you. Why do they keep coming back? There is likely to be a consistent idea or theme that keeps coming up.

2. Think about what it is you do best. This is the unique thing about what you deliver, and the way you deliver it that no one else can deliver as effectively. It may be the way you put programmes together, your style of working, your values, your attitudes, other added value you give to your clients.

3. Focus on one idea. It is likely that you deliver lots of benefits, do lots of different things and do lots of things uniquely. There will however be one thought that keeps on coming through which captures the what you get and what you do best. You want to be able to give people a single idea which allows them to download the benefit very quickly. Think big!

As an example a sales development agency in my network (Ruby Star) talks about "ooomph for business" - you can immediately download that this company will help you move forward and grow. In my own business I talk about moving your business "from good to awesome" - I help people who want to be remarkable and make a difference in the world. Another company supporting young people in enterprise, career, personal development is called Striding Out - they help people stride out to success. etc.

Use a thesaurus to explore words that capture your essence. Or ask others to sum up what you deliver best.

4. You may have a number of "packages". It may be that there is not a single idea that captures everything because you have a number of different packages - because you are either targeting a different group of people, with different needs or the benefit you are delivering differs significantly. It is ok to have a number of packages if this is the case, as long as each of these packages has a single idea.

5. Don't try to win everyone. Not everyone is going to love how you package yourself and they don't have to. You want to come up with a proposition which will make the people who share your values, attitudes and world view love what you do.

2 comments:

Thanks for the feedback! Hope it was useful. If you want more free stuff I have a monthly newsletter that covers all sorts of business performance issues from goal setting to planning, sales and marketing and managing teams.